People are always asking me what I think of certain indie games that existed before I started Indie Gamer Chick. The two most commonly asked about titles are Fez and Limbo. I couldn’t finish Fez because of my epilepsy, so Limbo is the only one I’m really qualified to speak of. (UPDATE: I did end up reviewing it!) But seriously, it’s like a daily thing. “What did you think of Limbo?” As if Limbo is the be-all, end-all of console-based indies.

I liked Limbo. I really did. I also feel the game is fairly overrated. When you strip out of the visuals and bleakness, it’s just a good, but not great, platformer. A trend I’ve noticed is that a lot of people only played through the early part of the game. When you first enter Limbo, you can be left shell-shocked by the dark tone, spooky visuals, and the fact that one of the first things that happens is an awesome, intense encounter with a giant spider. It perhaps gives the false impression that all those emotions will retain their impact through-out the game. They don’t. At least for me, I found myself desensitized to the whole concept not even half-way in. Once Limbo started focusing more on twitchy-platforming instead of physics-based puzzles, I started finding myself almost bored. It never fully becomes a chore, but once it starts becoming a platforming cliché, it does sort of burn out.

I filled in the blanks by pretending that the game starred Schroeder from The Peanuts. Here he is, learning of Charlie Brown’s final fate.

Also, it was hard to get worked up about the setting when the game was using the all-deflecting “it’s an art game” shield, which pretty much guaranteed an ending “left open to interpretation.” Never been a fan of that. Especially when the game was abstract to begin with. So I guess the idea is the kid, or kids, are dead. How they died or when or where or why is never explained. Theories range from a car wreck to falling out of the tree house to being murdered. I guess from a marketing point of view, it works, because at least people are talking about the game. But I found the ending unsatisfying, because it offered no closure at all. When you invest hours into a game hoping to get some kind of explanation for all the fucked up happenings and the payoff is more questions, it almost feels like the director himself didn’t really know where to go with it. I’ll call this the “Tim Burton’s Planet of the Apes Effect.”

Yea, sometimes the questions are more fun than the answers, but in the case of Limbo, you’re playing characters that have no characterization at all. The boy has no back story, no dialog, no personality, no facial expressions, or anything else going for him. The girl is no different. You’re forced to fill in the blanks yourself, but most of the symbolism is in the background and can be easily missed on account of you playing the game. Because the actual gameplay starts to dull towards the end, Limbo really doesn’t lend itself well to replaying to look for the clues that you missed.

Limbo’s ending. I apologize for comparing it to Burton’s Planet of the Apes. That’s a low-blow.

I don’t mean to be too negative here. Sometimes Limbo is brilliantly designed from a gameplay perspective. The bits with the spider early on are one of my all-time gaming highlights. Unfortunately, Limbo pretty much shot its wad in the first twenty minutes. Nothing that followed the sequence where you’re hopping in the spider’s cocoon came remotely close to the thrills and chills that section offered. All that’s left is solid physics-based platforming that I almost wish was in a more cheerful setting, because too much dark shit can get exhausting. But hey, dark is in right now. Any product that aims to be joyful is setting itself up for failure. If an indie game isn’t so bleak that you want to bury your face in your hands and cry, the developer must be mentally ill. Or possibly not mentally ill enough.